I too have a list of shows that my husband can watch without me, and vice versa! He is always at liberty to watch: White Collar, Suits, Agents of SHIELD, or Castle. In return, I can watch Veep or OITNB, because after Piper left that screwdriver in her pocket and could NOT come up with a solution, he said “that woman is too stupid to be believable, I’m out,” and nothing could coax him back.
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your student loans are in your MIND. wait, no, that’s literally nonsense.
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GET WELL MERRY CLAYTON, we need you!
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Tall genius unfamiliar with figure vital to understanding gun control in modern America:
Once, Bennet recalls, Coates was engaged in a gun control debate on the Atlantic’s Web site with Jeffrey Goldberg, a well-known colleague at the magazine. Goldberg referred to the philosopher and theologian Saint Augustine. Coates confessed that he didn’t know who Saint Augustine was, then charged ahead with the debate.
“I can’t think of another writer who wouldn’t have Googled it!” Bennet says.
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Speaking of aforementioned tall genius, he has compiled an incomplete yet daunting reading list for those of us who want to know more about reparations!
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ONE MORE TA-NEHISI-RELATED LINK TODAY, but I had never read his piece about why blacks do not study the Civil War, and it is WHAAAAAAAAAAAA:
For that particular community, for my community, the message has long been clear: the Civil War is a story for white people—acted out by white people, on white people’s terms—in which blacks feature strictly as stock characters and props. We are invited to listen, but never to truly join the narrative, for to speak as the slave would, to say that we are as happy for the Civil War as most Americans are for the Revolutionary War, is to rupture the narrative. Having been tendered such a conditional invitation, we have elected—as most sane people would—to decline.
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Ann Friedman on the misogyny of #notallmen who talk about guns a lot:
“Wives were threats. Girlfriends were threats. Women who talked too much were threats,” Burdick continues. “And women who held public office and wouldn’t shut up were the scourge of the land. I have also picked up bumper stickers at gun shows that said: I JUST GOT A GUN FOR MY WIFE. IT’S THE BEST TRADE I EVER MADE.” You can own a gun. Physically and legally take possession of it. There’s no fear of rejection. It can’t divorce you. It can’t ask for alimony payments. You pull the trigger, it responds.
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It’s not just Gary Oldman saying dumb shit to Playboy.
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Barbers in LA are going to start taking blood pressure readings:
Victor and Reid say they’ll work with about two-dozen barbershops in LA and will track at-risk patients for at least 18 months. They have partnerships with low-cost health clinics, and Reid says he’ll see patients who may not have insurance or who are cash-strapped.
“The ultimate cost is lessened if we treat your hypertension now, as opposed to your kidney disease and hemodialysis and your stroke and your heart attack downstream,” Reid says.
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23 Classic Hollywood GIFs That Are Better Than a Time Machine NICOLE STOPPED BREATHING OMIGODDDD:
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Emma Carmichael is taking over Jezebel!
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Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
So if Emma Carmichael is going to Jezebel, who is going to take over being EIC at the Hairpin? Has that been announced yet?
I remember reading somewhere (maybe in the buzzfeed piece?) That Edith is going to work with the Awl creators to find someone. So it hasn’t been announced but I think maybe Emma isn’t officially leaving for another month or two.
I’m curious to see who becomes the next EIC at the Hairpin and if they can find a way to turn it around from where it’s been headed since Edith left. I wish Emma all the best and have no ill will toward her at all, but it’s pretty clear to me the Hairpin wasn’t the best fit for her. I’m not sure the ‘Pin can be revived to what it once was, but I would love to see someone at the helm who is willing to try.
Yeah, I’m wondering if anyone can really bring it back to its heyday–I’m thinking not, mostly because such a large portion of the Hairpin was articles via frequent commenters and beloved correspondents–all of whom have moved on to other websites. I wonder if it would be possible to move it in a new direction–but that would require a total restructuring, I think, not just a continuation of what’s been happening there.
Definitely. I know a lot of my hoping and wishing is just a real big soft spot for what it used to be. It was the first place online where I felt like “I belong here” with the commentariat. That’s only ever happened twice–there, and here at the Toast.
But I think you’re right, part of the magic was definitely the pool of contributing writers, who have all gone on to their own new places. It would require a lot of work.
“It was the first place online where I felt “I belong here” with the commentariat.”
Seconded! I feel the commenting community is a big part of every blog. I enjoyed Pajiba for a large number of years but now…meh. And sadly, I’m finding The Pin slowly going down that same road; where did the smart, funny and cheeky commenters go (besides here, of course!)?
I think they’ve been moving towards more focused pieces–a lot of what I’m seeing there these days is really nice, thoughtful interviews, and I think that may be a good niche for them.
Seconded. I have a lot of theories that are unfounded about internet moving and shaking but I still check the Hairpin every day and think the work is STILL great. The music coverage is really nice for me and as you said, focused pieces, is great! Just different, that’s all. And some of us still hang out in the comments over there too.
Plus GALACTIC RABBIT and Baba Yaga! I’ll never abandon you.
I started reading the pin before the commentariat was huge because of the correspondents. I remember thinking it was the funniest site I had ever read and I loved how it had such a big range of traditional and random ‘girl’ stuff.
Then the commentariat grew and it had this lovely community feeling that made it even better.
So I think if the content had that tone again it would be good, though I think (for me!) the Hairpin will always be Edith, Nicole, Jolie, AHP and Jane.
I agree! But I am also really excited about the cool stuff Nicole, Jolie, AHP and Jane are doing with themselves. (I’m maybe not using the internet to its full capabilities and don’t know what Edith is up to)
“…though I think for me the Hairpin will always be Edith, Nicole, AHP and Jane.”
YES! Exactly this, thanks for helping express those precise feelings I have for the Hairpin.
I really hope it’s Jia. She is so smart and such a good writer, and on the few occasions that I’ve visited the Pin in the last year, she seems to be working REALLY hard to keep the site going. Her article on the Sugar Ray concert was my favorite thing they’ve published since Edith left.
Co-signed, I fucking love Jia!
Thirded on the Jia fandom!
YES. I love Jia! I would love to see what she would do in charge!
Yesssss! Jia is clearly a gem. She’s also one of the best interviewers I’ve ever seen (read).
The entire ‘Interview With A Virgin’ series was beautiful.
#STEAKBLASTING
NEVER FORGET!
AGREED. jia is awesome. i think about that sugar ray piece at least once a week, honestly.
Like 75% of my favorite new music from the last year comes from Jia recommendations.
I’m much more of a lurker both here and at The Hairpin, but I figured I’d put my 2 cents in about this anyways.
I always really loved Emma’s writing and voice, and really wished she had put more of that out there- I think the commenters were pretty hostile to her as she was gaining her sea legs, and wayyy less so towards Jia, who then became more of the day-to-day voice. I think Emma was doomed to be not “the best fit” simply by not being Edith, which is why though I’m sad she’s leaving, it’s probably good for her. She’s clearly a great editor- The Hairpin might have lost its commenters to The Toast, but luckily there’s enough great writing on the internet for more than one site, and she’s ace at picking the good stuff.
I don’t know. I think the commentariat became a bit hostile and started leaving only after it became clear that they were no longer being treated in a way that was familiar to them–it was of course completely up to Emma how she was going to run the Hairpin, but to me part of taking over something with an established base successfully is to interact with and consider that base when moving forward, and once it became clear that the commentariat was being summarily ignored, that’s when things got hostile. I know I heard a LOT of complaining that the lack of moderation in the comments and a lack of basic interaction with the new management team was a major issue for a lot of people.
I for one was initially very interested in seeing where the ‘Pin was going to go after Edith left, but as the changes actually came into being, I lost my will to wait around and see what was going to happen, and I moved on. I’m thinking the state of things at the ‘Pin now is reflective of the fact that I wasn’t the only one that didn’t completely enjoy the change.
I will say though that you are spot-on both about Emma’s voice and the “day to day voice” thing w/r/t Jia. I just think that the hostility that came after Edith left was rooted in how the change was handled, not by the older team, but by the newer one.
I think you’re both right – I think the Pin commentariat could have given Emma a little more time to get her bearings, but they/we were also treated pretty brusquely right off the bat. For me, a big part of it wasn’t the change in and of itself, but how the new editors responded to warranted (and some unwarranted) criticism from long time readers. Not that readers/commenters own the site, but they were a big part of it and completely ignoring them in the beginning of your tenure leads to…well, the dead zone it is now.
This made me click over there for the first time in a while, and the first commentor on a video was Jaya and now I am convinced it is her destiny to take over the site
Oh wait, that would be excellent!
I back Jaya’s claim to the throne, even if no such claim has been made. Kneel, rivals and pretenders!!
BUT WE NEED JAYA HERE
I’M SO TORN
Yeah, I don’t actually read a lot of Hairpin stuff beyond Baba Yaga, so I didn’t know who Jia was until I read her Sugar Ray article and some other ones just now. They were so good! I have to say I would welcome a Jia reign as well.
There is Jia Tolentino (she’s at the hairpin) and Jaya Saxena of Jaya and Matt. Two different humans. Jia = Hairpin Jaya= Toast. (I only know this because I had to establish for myself that they were not the same)
I know, I believe there are people advocating the that both Jaya and Jia should run the world/the hairpin/etc. Could have misunderstood who eastcoastanne was talking about though!
Ohh I think you are right. I read my own confusion into the comments.
No worries! It’s a tricky situation. JIA AND JAYA FOR QUEENS OF EVERYTHING is a safe stance.
I am so happy about those gifs. Suddenly I want to watch all those movies.
I think it is pretty reasonable for a modern writer to not know or care who St. Augustine is. It’s true that he makes some good philosophical arguments, but he also makes some dumb ones, and generally speaking, name-checking guys like Augustine is about making your argument seem more credible
(“look, of COURSE I’m right, a famous figure from history agreed with me!”)
and as a kind of ad-hoc ad hominem
(“how can we even take this guy seriously — he doesn’t know who St. Augustine is! Is there really room in this debate for that kind of person (I don’t mean “black”, I mean “doesn’t know who St. Augustine is”, this isn’t about class or race I swear)”)
(though I guess in this case the reference is just about how Coates isn’t ashamed to admit that he doesn’t know something, and doesn’t bother pretending that he does, the way that I probably would have)
(Ta-Nehisi Coates is the best)
I have no interest in making my eyes roll out of my head by reading into it further, but I am a little curious as to what St. Augustine has to do with gun control in the first place?
I am….not sure, actually. The article doesn’t mention any more about the debate than the paragraph quoted above; how Jeffrey Goldberg thought St. Augustine applied is left mysterious.
I imagine Coates’ thought process was just something like “Right, quoting a philosopher to make yourself look smart, ICWYDT, moving on.”
I get that their (snobby) argument is that he couldn’t be bothered to do the research but in the context of this particular debate, that detail is not relevant enough to stop everything for a quick wikipedia lesson.
Well, in the context of the full article, I think Bennet (the guy relating the anecdote), isn’t really being snobbish — he seems to be saying that Coates is admirably willing to let people see the things he doesn’t know, and isn’t afraid to push along and learn in the process, and doesn’t bother pretending that he does know.
That is my reading, anyway, but I also come from a position that is automatically dismissive of the legitimacy of an argument based on a historical referent. (i.e., “Of course Coates didn’t bother looking Augustine up; an argument that relies on one’s familiarity with 4th century Catholic theology is not an argument worth taking seriously.”)
Fair enough. I think I’m just extra hostile to the idea of someone going “Oh, you don’t know [ancient Western thing/person]?” with just a hint of pity, which is probably not what happened there, but I went off anyway.
“an argument that relies on one’s familiarity with 4th century Catholic theology is not an argument worth taking seriously”
Yes yes. I want to wage some reverse snobbery at all those people who think that the ultimate way to win an argument is to find some dude who wrote in Latin to back them up. Your familiarity with the classics is LESS valuable than my familiarity with more recent and relevant works! It’s sad and transparent, the way you’re grasping at the trappings of intellectualism!
(sorry, I have some personal history with this bullshit)
I’m also desperately curious to figure out how St. Augustine is related to gun control, unless we’re going for a “predestination/nothing matters because if you’re destined to be shot you’re destined to be shot and nothing can change that” type thing. Which seems A) weird, B) a bit of a stretch, and C) not relevant.
Oh wait, here we go, Wikipedia. Apparently Augustine believed in a pacifistic Christianity, but also deferred to the idea that “Defense of one’s self or others could be a necessity, especially when authorized by a legitimate authority” and pioneered the idea of a “just war.”
I am still not buying this.
Yeah, I was just about to bet twenty bucks that it was “just war” theory. Augustine has been mercifully providing an excuse to abandon pacifism to Christians for sixteen hundred years.
If the owner of the orchard had been armed, Augustine would never have stolen those pears.
The sin of violence is abrogated when undertaken to prevent a graver wrong. For example: the theft of fruit.
Without St. Augustine, we’d never have Les Mis!
But seriously, I’m with you all. In the same way that I don’t think strict constructionism makes sense (What did a bunch of 18th c. white guys think about power and authority? Let’s do that!), using St. Augustine (or really, any theology) to inform policy is just backwards to me.
Ah yes that uniquely Augustinian concept that can only be comprehended via a namedrop
Like a guy like Coates should probably read up on Augustine ’cause he’s sorta useful to understanding lots of modern ethics but Jesus Christ is this how these people actually talk
It’s a pretty good, if fairly anodyne, profile of Coates, though. Also, it reveals that he is in fact very tall, which I did not know, I had always assumed he was average height.
In that respect I would say it is very informative.
Right? I was thinking about what St. Augustine wrote that stuck out to me, and all I could think of was that he thinks babies are selfish and naturally evil. So don’t give babies guns?
Here Augustine and I are in complete agreement. I believe that we should NOT give babies guns.
I know for a fact that gun control was not an issue in the 4th century. St Augustine is not a good choice to back up your argument.
in 4c nobody had guns and everything was murders all the time, checkmate lieberals
The only defense against a bad guy with a pilum is a good guy with a pilum.
My husband also bailed on OINTB in the first season, although he thought it got too “emotional.” I also get to watch Agents of SHIELD and Game of Thrones without him, because he doesn’t like superheros and is still working through the ASOIAF books. He gets Workaholics, which used to be great but I can’t watch it anymore after getting nauseous during the dead fish episode.
Also classic Hollywood GIFs are the best.
Has SHIELD gotten any better? I stuck with it through the first half of the season and just couldn’t bring myself to care about the people they wanted me to care about.
YES it got so much better. I actually also quit halfway through, but after a few weeks a friend convinced me to give it another shot and he was very right. The last few episodes are just great.
Seconded! It got SO GOOD once it picked up. I just wish it hadn’t taken as long to pick up as it did!
Me too, they lost so many viewers while faffing around waiting to be able to do the Winter Soldier tie in.
The plot definitely gets to start doing interesting things, and yes to allowing the characters to begin having actual, real conflicts and stuff. Now if they could just do something, anything to give those characters any depth and/or nuance.
There is also a thing that happens towards the end that retroactively makes the first half way more interesting.
Ok, now I need to watch past the first 5 episodes.
Episode six was one of the best, actually, so keep going!
And yes to what somebees said.
Same here, I WANTED to like it but just couldn’t get into it.
Me too. I’m wondering if it might be better watched in one go if anyone I know ever gets the box set for me to borrow.
That Ann Friedman article scared the crap out of me. This is as good a time as any to remind everyone to Not Read The Comments, nothing good comes of it.
I loved the Ann Friedman article. No amount of money in the world could make me read the comments, and I am at peace with that.
I read the first one WHY why would I do that?
Also, “(4) Handguns function normally every day of the month.”
🙁 🙁 🙁
That one is clearly nonsense, everybody knows that guns will jam every fifth time you fire them on nights when there’s a full moon.
This was my favorite (least favorite) comment:
She forgot to mention that guns know how to shut up when you lock them in the closet. That’s an important one, have fun taking another joke way too seriously. Everyone knows gun owners can never be joking. Impossible, right? They’re barely even human.
Get it together, America.
GET IT TOGETHER, AMERICA.
Those women, man. Never shutting up when you lock them in a closet.
I watch a lot of TV without my husband, basically the things we watch together are Game of Thrones and Masterchef and everything else is fair game for me to watch without him. Though, I have been told I cannot start Breaking Bad without him (neither of us watched it as it aired).
If I had a locker, there’d be a picture of Ta-Nehisi Coates inside the door with hearts drawn on it.
I’m not sure my parents watch anything but sports together, and even then sometimes my dad wants to watch Syracuse without anyone around. My mom has always said that the secret to the longevity of their marriage is two TVs.
oof Marlene
oof Greta
I am SUPER bisexual today.
I’ve been watching (and watching and watching and watching) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and OOOOOOF HELLO LADIES. Marilyn is all wiggly and soft and supple; Jane is so broad and strong and laughing throatily.
And, I mean, there are some dudes too, but they are so beside the point.
Aren’t dudes so often besides the point?
SO OFTEN, but rarely so decidedly and obviously so. In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the (uh) gentlemen are ridiculously, pointedly beside the point. There’s a milquetoast fiancé and his blustering father, a bumbling gumshoe, a faffling old jillionaire, and a nameless bevy of Olympic man-flesh. The most vivid, interesting, intelligent male character is a small child.
This sounds appealing. Should it be available on UK Netflix, I will watch it.
The mister and I have very similar tastes in television, so it BROKE MY HEART when he refused to watch Battlestar Galactica (which is my favorite show ever, ever, ever) with me. He can’t articulate why the show doesn’t appeal to him beyond “It looks stupid.” None of my arguments – the awesomeness of Laura Roslin! Gaius Baltar’s ridiculous but also amazing character arc! Katee Sackhoff’s jawline! – will sway him. It’s the only real issue in an otherwise cloudless marriage.
Oof. After I watched BSG all the way twice through, my boyfriend finally agreed to watch it with me, and now he is IN IT. I hope your husband has a similar revelation!
That said, he absolutely refuses to watch House of Cards, so you win some you lose some.
I think I can firmly state, without any sort of equivocation, that you are right, and your husband is wrong on this.
The other day someone said they “just didn’t care about any of the characters, they weren’t very good.” And I was like: “you are a damn fool.” I want a What Would Laura Roslin Do bracelet. Also, I watched the whole series in 3 weeks on Netflix when I was recovering from cyst surgery so it will always be in my heart as the greatest show ever made.
Essentially, I just have learned to accept that TNC and me can still be imaginary friends anyway. It was a good growth moment for me.
Barbershop Public Health! It’s become a big thing here in Philadelphia too. Discussing health issues (blood pressure, diabetes, prostate health, etc) and helping connect people with health care resources while they’re together with friends and acquaintances creates a healthier dialogue, helps reassure some people who may be nervous about health interventions (medicine, lifestyle changes), and creates better accountability for individual’s health. People in lower economic areas in big cities DO want to be healthy, but they are often disconnected from access. Creating the dialogue, showing how they can access, and following up with the patient the next weekend – all fantastic developments in public health that show a lot of promise! Yay!
WHOOO! That is absolutely fabulous! I’m very excited to see this kind of marriage of community and health access too- especially since it seems to tip the power and access back to the community and the individual, which, like you say, can be very reassuring and empowering.
Chiming in to say – hooray for public health wins!
Also yaying at this great news. Healthcare: Everywhere, all the time. Just like “Life in the Fast Lane.”
Can someone more web media savvy explain why Emma Carmichael’s move was announced on Buzzfeed rather than at Jez or The Hairpin? Was this some kind of scoop or a formal announcement? I feel like there are hidden politics behind it all that I don’t understand (and I don’t know why I want or need to understand, but I hate feeling left out of gossip). (yes, I know these people are not my friends)
I was wondering about that and just figured I wasn’t cool enough to get the media politics.
I agree with your desire to want to understand this. The reminds me of when they put Jane Marie’s wedding photos up on the pin and someone said “Its like they are the cool kids in high-school, they don’t know you, but you know them”
yes, exactly
Yeah. And I mean, we have to remember that writing/journalism is an industry. Of course these people are going to know one another in real life, and maybe even become friends outside of work networking, etc, but it’s weird because we’re exposed to their industry in a way we’re not with others, so we FEEL like we know them but then get these occasional reminders that we don’t.
Hopefully that incredibly long sentence made sense to someone!
Right. Because what they write is often so personal. Especially in this format.
It was a scoop! Myles is on the breaking-news/NYC media beat and beat everyone else to the announcement, which is cool for him because he’s a smart dude. Anytime someone gets an EIC position at a big media company like Jezebel, it’s news; BuzzFeed happened to beat everyone else to the punch this time. When Nicole left to start The Toast with me, the Observer did a brief writeup of us — I can’t remember if it came before or after her official goodbye, but I think it was after. There will probably be an official announcement on the Awl network reasonably soon.
thanks, Mallory! Was hoping for more of a conspiracy, but reason works too.
given that it quotes from an email she sent to other Awl writers while she wasn’t available for comment, I’m guessing it’s that the dude from buzzfeed lucked his way into a leak and decided to scoop the Awl network on the announcement. No doubt there’s some hidden politics involved in her decision to leave (in the way there’s politics in all human decisions) but– not in the manner of its announcing.
Oh, Gary Oldman, pulling my very favorite trope – WHITE MAN HATES THAT POLITICAL CORRECTNESS HAS GONE MAAAAADDD IN THIS COUNTRY!! NOBODY CAN EVEN TAKE A JOKE!!
“I AM LITERALLY NEVER HURT BY THESE JOKES BECAUSE THEY DON’T REFER TO ME AND I HAVE SO LITTLE EMPATHY I CAN’T UNDERSTAND HOW THEY COULD HARM PEOPLE WHO AREN’T LIKE ME’
I AM MAD THAT THOSE PEOPLE CAN TALK BACK.
best most concise expression of my inarticulate rage at #notallwhitemen’s response to being The Fking Worst
Shame on his publicist. Most of the young folks only know him as Sirius Black, decent magical being.
What seems so obvious is who the audience is for this particular manufactured celebrity profile. Since this is Playboy, it must espouse a sensibility that appeals to playboy readers – “famous person is just like me!” Just as celebrity profiles in Redbook and Good Housekeeping must do the same for a certain type of woman (my mom). It is all part of the same celebrity gossip machine that’s been going on forever. Thanks for opening my eyes to that, AHP.
That said, Gary (a former favorite) is now on my shit list. Thatz not okay.
Yep, funny how male celebrities always say douchey things in Playboy interviews, assuming that everyone who reads it is a sympathetic douchebag who will nod along and say “right on, bro!”
ETA: Yes, AHP has taught me SO much!!! <3
I feel like this maybe illustrates what I already suspected about Hollywood – that it’s so insulated, and that a lot of those people DO say reprehensible things when they get drunk, because they’re each on their own little pedestal and so everyone there starts to feel like it’s totally normal, whereas it’s totally fucking not.
Nobody would fucking know who Gary Oldman is now if he hadn’t first come to prominence in films like “Prick Up Your Ears” in the 80s, playing a confirmed and out “F-*-G”. If he’d shown the attitude he has now about the role (especially in interviews) his career would have come to an abrupt halt.
“He got drunk and said a few things, but we’ve all said those things.”
Haha I would just like to go on the record to note that none of the regrettable things I have done while drunk involved saying things about Jews.
If you say racist stuff while drunk, the racist thoughts were inside of you all along.
The racist thoughts are coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE.
Yeah, I was actually kinda offended by that. “UM EXCUSE ME NO I HAVE NOT, SIR.”
We did have a copy of Playboy floating around our house for a while because while C was in journalism school an alum who worked for Playboy came in for a talk and passed them out. It included a Chris Tucker interview in which he said nothing offensive but was clearly very bored and only doing the interview to promote Rush Hour 3.
When it was time to move, we hastily disposed of it before our family showed up to help.
This is exactly why it’s SO IMPORTANT for people who do not say those things to speak up and say EXCUSE ME, BUT NO. Like I think Gary Oldman is experiencing right now. Ugh, Gary.
Precisely. During the Paula Deen furor, one revelation was her answer in a deposition to the question “Have you ever used [racial epithet] yourself?”
Her response: “Yes, of course.”
I’m going to repeat that: “Yes, of course.”
Nope, there’s no “of course” about it, and don’t presume that just because you use appalling slurs, everyone does.
Honestly, I would’ve been surprised if a 67-year-old white native Georgian hadn’t.
He’s just sayin’ what we’re all thinkin’ amirite?
OINTB, Parks and Rec, and Amy Schumer are actually ones my boyfriend will not let me watch without him. I’m on my own for Luther, The Good Wife, GoT, and any British costume drama except Downton. He gets Workaholics and American Dad.
omg LUTHER. Thats all.
I watch OITNB and Veronica Mars and West Wing without E, and he watches Always Sunny in Philadelphia without me. Which I don’t mind at all, because I think that the people on Always Sunny are the Worst and can’t stand them. The real victory was when I converted him into a Bob’s Burger’s fan.
My dude also likes Always Sunny and I also find it a little to far out on the “terrible people you love to hate” spectrum for my taste.
YES Bob’s Burgers!!! now everyone go watch Home Movies (previous Loren Bouchard/H. Jon Benjamin show)
Thank you for connecting those dots for me! God, I LOVE Home Movies. Haven’t seen it in ages, need to again. Paula Poundstone was so perfect, as was everyone and every single frame.
My husband likes to watch Girls, which I am very happy to let him do without me. I watch a metric fuckton of Korean dramas without him (currently, You Are All Surrounded, considering starting High School King of Savvy and Trot Lovers).
Together, we tend to watch just one show at a time. We’re between shows right now, but I’m going make him watch the Freedom Summer episode of American Experience with me tonight.
How is You Are All Surrounded? I watched the first two episodes and decided to hold until more had aired (it seemed like it could be good, but could very easily turn out to be terrible; Gu Family Book was certainly a disaster by the end).
But first I have to finish Tree with Deep Roots.
My significant other and I hardly watch any shows together anymore, which is too bad, but he’s pretty committed to working his way through the whole Cable Drama with Troubled Male Protagonist canon, which for me is just a bridge too far.
I’m really interested to see how Jezebel evolves with Emma in charge. I generally avoid it because something about the tone kinda makes my skin crawl, but maybe that will change?
same here! they have good wks and bad wks, but on their bad wks i just eye roll and groan through it all.
Sometimes they have really good things. When ever I think Ughhhh JEZEBEL I remember this http://thehairpin.com/2013/11/remembering-the-ear… (Jen Doll does the interview!) And I feel better.
I hear Jezebel was awesome at the beginning. I don’t know–I only started reading it in 2010. I basically quit reading it these past few months b/c the ugh.
I started reading it in the fall of 2007, a few months after it launched, and it was life-changing for me. I was a severely depressed 17 year old questioning my religion and sexuality and that community of strong, brilliant women became the life raft that I clung to during my last and very difficult year at a Christian high school in Alabama. Feminism wasn’t a dirty word, and women talked candidly about sex and masturbation! There was even a post about being an adult virgin and some people in the comments talked about how they hadn’t been kissed until they were adults and I wasn’t alone or defective or a monster like I feared I was. There were definitely some moments that deserved a side-eye, but overall it was great.
tl;dr Early Jezebel was the best and now I’m crying.
That sounds like it would’ve been helpful to me when I was younger!
Are you crying because you miss it or bc the personnel changes?
THAT AWL ARTICLE. Obviously the original study is full of all sorts of craziness, but the fact that it implies that anything under $50k in student loan debt is not a “large amount” of debt is making me want to set everything on fire and take to the sea.
Right?? It’s like when people say things like, “Well, it’s only a $300/month payment.” Yeah, that “only” meant a pretty big chunk of (pre-tax) money when I made $26k and my rent was $800/month. I feel like these are the same people who wonder “Why all you young people aren’t settling down and buying houses.”
Ugh, post-tax, I mean. Gah.
$300 is an entire apartment, some places!
*Thank you.* As someone who owes slightly over 20 grand and makes…slightly over 20 grand a year…. That’s plenty, guys. That’s kind of a lot. Great to know the New York Times won’t give a fuck until I’m literally twice as unable to imagine ever paying it off.
“twice as unable” is perfect. NYT, the people who can determine how much debt is too much debt are the PEOPLE THEMSELVES. $50k is presumably not a ton for some people, just as $5k can be crippling for others.
Also, by the time it is paid off with interest, $40k in loans can easily be $60k.
YES, this is huge.
TESTIFY. Jesus.
When a guy says he “hates PC” that’s the same thing as #notallmen.
Meaning, not my fault, no one should control MY speech. He is entitled, different, special. Those rules don’t apply to him..
isn’t #notallmen about dudes who are like, “actually I would like to derail this conversation by pointing out that I am not bad like those other racist sexist guys”?
When someone rejects “being PC,” I hear it as a whooping siren announcing how tightly that person clings to their privilege, how little they value other people’s experiences of bigotry and marginalization, and how firmly they refuse to consider their entrenched view of the world. It’s a battle cry of ignorance and refusal.
Mr Polka Dots and I watch last night’s Colbert and Stewart every evening together and he’ll get very upset if I watch “our comedies” without him. We watch House of Cards, Sopranos (sloooowly working through that), and usually have some dopey formulaic thing (used to be Hawaii 5-0 and Royal Pains, we haven’t found anything that looks hilariously bad in awhile), pretty much everything else is fair game. We might ask each other before starting a new show if they want to watch with us but we haven’t really found anything that clicks for us for awhile.
AAA those gifs!
That divine Gary Cooper!
Marlooooooooooon!
Marlene Dietrichs game!
OMG that marlon brando gif. *dead forever*
For lack of a better place to mention it, there’s a Skinny Cow GLAMPING (glam + camping? I assume?) ad right above this post in my browser, which seems like a very HEY LADIES sort of activity.
I kind of love the glamping ad (and get it all the time). It’s so gleefully ridiculous and tone deaf!
Since you’ve already mentioned Hey Ladies, this seems like an appropriate place to ask, is anyone else is going to Hey Ladies: Live tonight?
http://www.housingworks.org/events/detail/hey-lad…
I AM SO THERE if I can get out of work in time. On FB it says something like 500+ people are going though. BAH.
I get glamping and a sneaky one about chicken disguised as a post. Combined, I guess I’m supposed to make oven-fried chicken in a Bedazzled Crock-Pot in a campground rest room. I could totally do that.
I went ahead and read the whole thing it links to last night (trying to do my part to boost ad revenue for the new servers and all) and can promise you that it is AT LEAST as dumb as you assume it is. GLAMPING, you guys. Glamping. It is a terrible name for a nonsense concept. Essentially, they stayed in a poorly-insulated hotel draped in zebra print.
Everyone should go read it. You know, for the servers.
Mr.BHam has some of his own shows (Top Gear, Burn Notice) but without fail if I try to watch something without him, EVEN SOMETHING HE’S PASSED ON IN THE PAST, he invariably wanders into the room when I’m halfway through the first season, watches the end of the episode with me, turns to me, and says, “This is great! We should start from the beginning!”
This has happened with: Upstairs, Downstairs (the 2012 reboot), House MD, How I Met Your Mother…the list goes on.
Those gifs are gorgeous, but if you can’t whip up a saucier gif from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, you aren’t trying very hard.
I have so few shows I can watch on my own because I watch nearly everything with one friend or another. It makes it hard to entertain myself with TV when I’m alone. I have to — horror of horrors — actually read books and things.
Jumping from the Friedman article to the 2013 article in the Times about restraining/protection orders and removing guns from the hands of alleged abusers, it is STARTLING how many of the comments carry the same narrative as rape commentary: Women lie.
Women make up abuse to get orders and women get orders for reasons like leverage for divorce. In other words, enough women lie about abuse that it is MORE of a concern than women who die at the hands of men with known violent problems. I’m so flabbergasted.
My disgust is reserved for the people who say giving (allegedly!) abused women a modicum of peace and safety should be trumped by the “civil right” of owning guns. One commenter actually said that the number of orders filed by women abused (minority!) by men who own guns (minority!) who would actually murder them (even more of a minority!) is too little to be of concern.
HE QUESTIONED whether the Times even bothered to investigate whether a man, a target of a false order, was the victim of a violent crime while his guns were taken away from him. With a straight face, I assume.
On the original Friedman article, one person actually claims that the misogynists with REAL violent tendencies are the ones who hide them, not putting them in plain sight in the form of bumper stickers and sexist jokes.
No, dude, it’s all in plain sight. We just refuse to acknowledge it for some reason.
I introduced my boyfriend to Absolutely Fabulous the other night because he somehow had never even heard of it before and he stayed up all night until he finished the first season and now I’m kind of peeved because I wanted to re-watch some of them.
This is not a positive viewpoint about The Hairpin, but I really want to express my opinions; maybe someone will agree.
From the moment Edith left TH, Emma was like a lead weight on the blog. It was not just her lack of interaction with the commentariat, which edith did increasingly less of as time went on, it was the fact that every morning, Emma went to Gawker to find stuff to post on TH.
In an interview, edith said she made sure to stay away from sites like TH so there wouldn’t be too much crossover. I would read stuff for the first time on the ‘pin and then several hours or days later on Jezebel.
Many people here also seem to really like Jia, and she is indeed and excellent interviewer. But turning TH into a blog that mentioned Beyoncé every.fucking.day was too much. Her attitude in the Sugar Ray article spoke to an intelligent woman who’s a good writer but is essentially arrogant–I’m assuming because of her youth. It didn’t sit well with me.
I was sad to see what was a fun place to go with lovely people (all here now!) turn into what it did, even though occasionally there’s still some excellent stuff.
Sorry if this was just too mean. I’m a little older than I suspect many of you are and *definitely* older than Emma and Jia.
My main complaint about The New Hairpin is exactly that – it went from “I saw it on TH first and actually read the comments there” to “Saw it everywhere else, then TH, and there are 4 spam comments.” It felt really lazy to me.
Oh yeah, the spam! Yuck.
Over the past two days I’ve gotten at least 10 spam replies to old comments, too! They come in bursts. I should probably log in and turn off “email me replies”…..
I had to do that!
To be utterly frank, the notion that HP would start suffering an arrogance problem after several years of Edith stewardship is pretty scoffworthy to me. If anything, it felt less itself because it felt less of a kind with the Awl, a site largely tailored toward literate New Yorkers and closely associated, through most of its life, with old guard Gawker commenters.
Oh, well, I meant specifically Jia as arrogant. I do t know about Emma because she showed exactly no personality.
But you were a frequent commenter! Did you have beef with either Hairpin or Awl???
I got pretty tired of Choire’s schtick after awhile and just kind of checked out. Edith’s writing tended to exhibit a similar remove but as you say, she kept a good rapport with the commentariat, and the site served as an incubator of sorts for a lot of great women writers. I recall Edith’s presence as being, for the most part, similar to Emma’s short tenure – she wrote notable longform pieces and some op-eds but the bulk of her posts were short link aggregates and song streams filling in the day-to-day gaps between the longer pieces.
At the risk of descending into trite publishing jargon, Emma did not seem to succeed at “building the brand”, but it wasn’t as if the content ebbed in quality, it just lost continuity of prominent bylines as their already-established names went off to greener (that is, more lucrative) pastures. I’m letting the role of the commentariat in all this rest on my part (that wave will crest in the HP post that makes it official, might as well save my energy) except to say that it was apparent as soon as Edith’s departure was announced that the content of the site itself during the following period couldn’t have mattered less. I think that was particularly unfair to Jia, who had been (and still is) a shining light in the months prior to that event. But I do her further disservice by referring to the Hairpin in the past tense. She deserves better than to have her work continually judged by what it is not.
To be utterly frank, the notion that HP would start suffering an arrogance problem after several years of Edith stewardship is pretty scoffworthy to me. If anything, it felt less itself because it felt less of a kind with the Awl, a site largely tailored toward literate New Yorkers and closely associated, through most of its life, with old guard Gawker commenters.
Also yaying at this great news. Healthcare: Everywhere, all the time. Just like "Life in the Fast Lane."
Thank you for connecting those dots for me! God, I LOVE Home Movies. Haven't seen it in ages, need to again. Paula Poundstone was so perfect, as was everyone and every single frame.
I get glamping and a sneaky one about chicken disguised as a post. Combined, I guess I'm supposed to make oven-fried chicken in a Bedazzled Crock-Pot in a campground rest room. I could totally do that.
I got pretty tired of Choire's schtick after awhile and just kind of checked out. Edith's writing tended to exhibit a similar remove but as you say, she kept a good rapport with the commentariat, and the site served as an incubator of sorts for a lot of great women writers. I recall Edith's presence as being, for the most part, similar to Emma's short tenure – she wrote notable longform pieces and some op-eds but the bulk of her posts were short link aggregates and song streams filling in the day-to-day gaps between the longer pieces.
At the risk of descending into trite publishing jargon, Emma did not seem to succeed at "building the brand", but it wasn't as if the content ebbed in quality, it just lost continuity of prominent bylines as their already-established names went off to greener (that is, more lucrative) pastures. I'm letting the role of the commentariat in all this rest on my part (that wave will crest in the HP post that makes it official, might as well save my energy) except to say that it was apparent as soon as Edith's departure was announced that the content of the site itself during the following period couldn't have mattered less. I think that was particularly unfair to Jia, who had been (and still is) a shining light in the months prior to that event. But I do her further disservice by referring to the Hairpin in the past tense. She deserves better than to have her work continually judged by what it is not.